This invention is in the field of card systems used for obtaining access to a wide variety of services either in a physical setting or in an online computer network setting. This field is concerned with the diverse techniques that are used in facilitating the secure communication of confidential or proprietary information (messages) between two or more entities. For purposes of this patent application, we restrict our attention to six types of cards—credit cards, debit cards, employee identification (ID) cards, drivers licenses, health insurance cards and social security cards. Under current technological practices, all these types of cards contain identifying information—usually alphanumeric strings specifying name of issuing entity, name of the party to whom the card has been issued, a specific number associated with the card, and period of validity, security code and signature of the card holder.
In the United States, physical or online transactions involving a credit card do not require the user to enter a password whereas transactions involving debit cards do require a password. Also, when credit card transactions are conducted, there is normally no attempt made to verify the identity of the individual using the credit card. This poses a problem since credit cards are often stolen. On the other hand, even if the cards themselves are not stolen but lists of credit card numbers held by various organizations such as banks, credit reporting agencies, large retailers and card processing companies are stolen, a significant number of fake credit cards can be easily manufactured very quickly and used effectively before the theft is noticed.
In the case of employee ID cards, it is extremely simple to make fake ID cards in order to gain access to buildings and computing facilities. In some special political or social situations, even if fake ID cards are not the issue, some employers may not wish to have either their identity or their employees' identities revealed for fear of having their assets compromised or their employees harmed or taken hostage for ransom purposes as, for example, diplomats. In the case of stolen health insurance cards and social security cards, thieves can establish bogus identities and submit fraudulent claims for medical and financial benefits.
The ability of crooks or malefactors to use stolen cards for nefarious purposes is made quite easy because the stolen cards contain names and numbers which are easily read and reproduced. One way to prevent this from happening is to create cards which contain no identifying names or numbers but instead contain other types of information such as images. Transaction processing systems employing images that are currently in existence such as CAPTCHA [See U.S. Pat. No. 6,195,698 B1 “Method for selectively restricting access to computer systems”], have two drawbacks—i) they use images as the second step in a two-step verification process and ii) the images themselves are totally independent of user information such names, card numbers and the like. Two recent patents that heavily rely on images for user identification are the OMNIGENE system [See U.S. Pat. No. 8,787,626 “The OMNIGENE Software System”] and the VIVID system [See U.S. Pat. No. 9,218,528 “VIVID: Image-based technique for validation/verification of ID strings]; however, these systems do not involve the use of imprinted cards nor do they require any password-based encryption/decryption techniques. The KAFKA system, a utility patent application submitted by the inventor to USPTO which is currently under review is also of some relevance to this patent application.